👊 Interview Question | A Time When You Handled A Difficult Situation (Example)

Well, hello there. I'm Natalie, your career lifeguard and author of Get Any Job You Want. Today we're going to talk about the power of stories. So we're going to talk about a specific story that you're asked to tell in an interview, and that is, tell me about a time when you handled a difficult situation. The real question here is, how do you act when you get stuck in a bad spot? Do you think well on your feet? What did you do last time this happened? A lot of people get stumped when they get asked these kind of questions, these scenario-based questions, because they haven't thought it through before, and it is hard to think of a story on the spot. What you'll learn today: how long your story should be, what to do if you get caught off guard and you're really stumped for an answer, an example story that I'll share for inspiration, and just for fun, I like to share a bad example of how this question has been answered in the past. So stay tuned. How long should your story be? I always say 30 seconds to a minute long generally. No longer than a minute and a half. Be warned because you could just get caught talking and never stop and rambling is a deal breaker in an interview. Characteristically, you should have a story prepared. Even if you're great at what you do, if you ramble, you'll be less likely to impress anybody. So I can't stress enough the stories. The stories that you have, the experiences that you've had, are what make you a unique person. They are the way in which you'll be remembered. So tell as many stories in interviews as you possibly can. I have a downloadable guide of inspirational stories that you can click to get. Click the link below and you can get started with those if you want. You can also ask people. Send out an email to friends or people you've worked with in the past and ask them for some stories that they remember about you. They'll be more likely to remember than you sometimes. Sometimes it'll be a funny story, sometimes not so good, but it's always a good thing to do. If you get stumped, what do you want to do? Have a basic theme to go on. So for example, you can have a main answer that applies to a lot of different scenario-based questions. If I get stumped, sometimes I'll just go back to communication because communication is Everything. So if you— they talk about how to handle a difficult situation and you've got nothing, you're drawing a blank, you can say this, and only if it's really in line with who you are. I tend to believe that in any situation it can be improved by good communication. Oftentimes situations get exasperated because people are not clear on what the other person means or what the other person expects of them. With improving the communication full circle and doing a little investigation and information finding, Figuring things out and moving forward becomes a lot more clear. Now, this wasn't a story with specific examples, but it'll work. It's better than nothing. So you can call it your backup story, if you will. A better example would be an actual story, and I will share one of mine with you. There was a time at work where there were 2 different high-level executives who asked me to do something, and they both asked me to do completely opposite things. This put me in a very awkward position. Because I didn't know who to listen to, and they were both very busy people, and I didn't want to go back and ask too many questions. So how I handled it was I was able to put them in contact with each other and make them aware of the conflict in a nice way. What ended up happening was they apologized to each other, then they apologized to me, and they came back with what they wanted me to do as a collective unit. So I was able to continue on with my job, and they were more Careful to check with each other before giving me a particular task. I will give you another example. This one was from way, way back, but I like it. I was working at a gym and my coworker had left because she was sick, and I ended up being left with an interview to conduct and an orientation to run with 8 new gym members waiting, and they were all there at the same time. I literally had 2 places to be at once. This was a difficult situation because my manager was unavailable. I tried phoning her and she was wasn't picking up the phone. The front desk lady had to remain at the front desk, and the trainers who were working had their own clients. So there was really no one else who could help me, and my manager wasn't available. So how did I handle this situation? I asked the gentleman coming in for the interview if he would join me on the orientation. I figured this would get him to see how we do things in the gym, and it demonstrated how he acted with a group of people. He did well. He demonstrated a couple of the exercises And after the orientation ended, I was able to finish up the interview and the crisis was averted. So that's an example of figuring out how to be in two places at once. Pretty difficult. Okay, now for a bad example. I pulled this example from real-life scenario where I was interviewing for an HR assistant. I actually asked her to tell me about a time when she had handled confidential information. So not exactly the same question, but kind of. So she kept repeating the same thing with more and more passion, but wasn't giving me any new information. And I was really digging because I really wanted to know. I would ask her, tell me about a time when you handled confidential info, and she kept saying, every day, all the time. Every day, all the time I handle confidential info. But she never gave any specifics. And I said, well, can you give an example of a time when you did? And she's like, every day, all the time. So the moral of this story, if you don't Be specific. You'll either be remembered as the person who wasn't specific, or you'll— you won't be remembered at all. So be specific. And there you have it, the answer to this difficult situation question. Now I'd love to hear from you. What's your story on this? Do you have a pickle that you'd like to share how you got out of? It's pretty good when you were able to think your way out of a hard situation. If you'd like to dive deeper with me, head on over to asknataliefisher.com. nataliefisher.com or click the link below, and when you sign up, you'll instantly get the free ebook on how to get any job you want and weekly updates with exclusive information that I only share in email. So head on over and grab it now. Do you know one person who would benefit from this information in this video? If you do, you know what to do. The current process that we use for finding jobs isn't perfect. It's kind of messed up, but you can outsmart it, and I am here to Prove to you that you've got what it takes, and I've got you covered. See you next week, and I can't wait.